


Two Birds

by mercuriosity



Category: Princess Tutu
Genre: Multi, Yuletide 2008
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-25
Updated: 2008-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-06 09:45:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/52328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mercuriosity/pseuds/mercuriosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fakir, and two birds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Birds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bell](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=bell).



> Written for bell in the Yuletide 2008 challenge. Contains spoilers for the end of the anime.
> 
> Audio version recorded by Luzula [here](http://community.livejournal.com/amplificathon/217002.html).

_There were two birds sitting on a stone,  
Fa, la, la, la, lal, de._

\---

Fakir is sitting on a wobbly stool, skinny legs swinging over the edge as Charon bandages up his knee, when a thought occurs to him.

"Charon," he says. Charon doesn't look up from his work, carefully cleaning dirt from the results of the latest altercation with neighborhood boys. "Can two boys get married?"

This makes Charon pause. "Not usually," he says. "Why do you ask?"

"I'm going to marry Mytho when I get older," Fakir declares. "That way I can be with him and protect him all the time."

Charon grasps Fakir's knees in his large hands and looks him in the eye. "You're very brave, Fakir," he says. "No matter how you do it, I know you'll protect him always. But you need to protect yourself, too. You can't keep getting into fights like this."

Fakir's face sets in a stubborn scowl. "They were saying things about Mytho," he says. "I told them I'd thrash anyone who made fun of him."

"Words are just words," Charon says. "They can't hurt you."

But Fakir already knows this is wrong.

\---

The years pass and Fakir starts to catch up to Mytho's height. He still believes he's going to marry Mytho one day—right up to the day the raven-girl shows up at school.

She slips her arm through Mytho's and the barbed smile she flings at him pierces his heart. His fingers itch to fight, but he knows this isn't a battle that can be won through strength. He doesn't even know how to issue a challenge on this new playing field.

"Just stay out of my way," she says sweetly. Her pale, delicate arm looks like iron binding Mytho to her side.

Later, Fakir will look on this as the first time he loved and lost.

\---

_One flew away, and then there was one,  
Fa, la, la, la, lal, de._

 

\---

The second time comes after a whirlwind of events and what was supposed to be their happy ending. But even a great author can't always write a perfect ending, and Fakir is not a great author. Not yet.

He wrote Ahiru into a girl again, but it never lasted: after a few hours, or a few days, or a few weeks, Ahiru would start to look uncomfortable and before long she would gradually seem to collapse into herself until she was just a pile of clothes making indignant quacking noises. Fakir tried and tried again. They had fights about it: long, loud fights that he wasn't trying hard enough or that she didn't want to be a girl enough, and if she wanted to be a duck that was fine, but she had to _tell_ him, it was hard enough trying to write things for the town and hadn't he promised he would stay with her anyway?

The last time, they both cried and he said he was sorry, he wasn't good enough, not strong enough, and she said maybe it would be better if she just stayed a duck and he could get on with writing things for other people, and that time when the story ended and she was a duck again he picked her up and kissed the top of her head and didn't try to write another one for her.

But though he kept his promise faithfully, time ran differently within her small body. And one spring day, as he was writing by the pond and she was curled up in the crook of his other arm, she gave a small "quack", and he knew that it meant, "Sorry, Fakir, I have to go now."

He buried her next to the pond where she had danced, swum, and dreamed.

The second time isn't any easier.

\---

It's night, and Fakir is twelve again, standing in the dimly-lit bedroom of his childhood.

Mytho's voice comes from the other side of the room, out of the darkness. _It's cold,_ he says. _Come into bed_.

Fakir crosses the room and slips under the covers, the way he used to do when he had a nightmare and would sneak into Mytho's room to sleep. But although it's warm underneath the blanket, he still shivers.

_Mytho, what red eyes you have_, he says.

_The better to see you with_, says Mytho.

_What large wings you have,_ he says.

_The better to hold you with,_ says Mytho.

_What a large beak you have_, he says.

_The better to tear you with_, says the raven, looming huge over him, and then everything is swallowed in darkness.

Fakir wakes, heart pounding, in his own bed, his own body. The birthmark on his chest aches; the memory of a scar. He's had this dream every night now for a week, and the circles beneath his eyes are getting darker and darker.

He knows he won't get any more sleep tonight, so he gets out of bed, makes himself some tea, and sits down to try the only way he knows of fighting the dream: writing it down.

\---

_The other flew after, and then there was none,  
Fa, la, la, la, lal, de._

\---

"You're getting to be an old man, Fakir," Mytho says to him one day, while he is writing and Mytho is reading a book—or, more often, looking at him.

This, he already knows: in the streaks of silver that appear in his hair, and the way he has to wear spectacles to write these days. But even through eyes that are growing dim he can see that Mytho looks exactly the same as he always has, and probably always will. The figure that looked impossibly grown-up to him as a child now looks impossibly young. Rue, too, is hardly changed, raven blood flowing thick and slow through her veins. Together, they look every inch the ageless fairy tale prince and princess.

"Well, don't start calling me grandpa just yet," he replies gruffly; an imitation of the tone he would use to order Mytho around when they were younger. He looks up to check that Mytho remembers; and yes, Mytho is smiling.

He pauses—he doesn't know why he's bringing this up now, except that the air between them suddenly feels heavy with memory. "I used to think," he says. "I used to think that I would marry you when I grew up. I thought it was the only way I could protect you forever."

Mytho doesn't laugh at him, or say anything; he just looks at Fakir for a moment, and then stands up and walks over to where he's sitting. Fakir, inexplicably, feels his heart start to speed up as Mytho leans down until their faces are mere inches apart.

There's a fierce second when Mytho's lips touch his that Fakir thinks: _I could write this, take it away from them; I could take the happy ending that was supposed to be **ours**_—and whether he means his and Mytho's or his and Ahiru's, he's not sure. But it fades in an instant, leaving no bitterness behind. He knows the difference between a natural conclusion and a forced one, and he wants no part of rewards he's too twisted up to enjoy. He's had his role in the story, and it's been a good one.

"Thank you," Mytho says, and the real feeling in his eyes is worth a hundred times the heartbreak Fakir's endured. "I always knew I was safe with you."

The only thing Fakir can say is, "You're welcome."

His dreams, although they still feature Mytho, are of a different nature that night.

\---

Years pass in the same quiet way as before. He sees Mytho only occasionally. He visits Ahiru almost every day. In the in-between, he writes and writes and writes.

It's a chilly winter day many years later; once again, he writes and Mytho reads. Slowly, he adds one final word to the page and considers it. Satisfied, he writes: "The End."

When Mytho leaves that day, Fakir hands him the book that's been the labor of so many years.

"Promise me that you'll read it to your children," he says.

"I promise," Mytho says, and Fakir feels a deep sense of relief. Nothing else matters, except that future generations will remember the story of _The Duck, the Prince, the Raven and the Knight_.

His work is done.

\---

_And so the poor stone was left all alone,  
Fa, la, la, la, lal, de!_


End file.
